
[Kepviiited f)om The Popular Sciexce ^Moxtiily, April, 1005.] 



THE MENACE TO NIAGARA. 



By Dr. JOHN M. CLARKE, 

NEW YORK STATE GEOLOGIST, DIRECTOR OF SCIENCE AND THE STATE MUSEUM. 

"C^OEECASTS by eminent geologists of the future of Niagara Falls 
-■-' have been much in the iniblic eye and have lost some of their 
novelty though none of their interest. The great cataract, it is said, 
is committing suicide, and the physical factors which enter into the 
process have, it is thought, been carefully weighed. If matters proceed 
as they are now going, the face of the cataract receding without in- 
terruption, the falls are to wear themselves out, or if the dominating 
crustal movement continues, the escarpment is to be left bare because 
its waters will be stolen away and turned back into Lake Erie. 

These are interesting possibilities, but they hardly rise to the dignity 
of probabilities, for opposing considerations have been left out of the 
calculations and even the remote periods assigned to their arrival grow 
longer and more distant in the face of factors overlooked or not 
sufficiently estimated. Nothing can be as wrong as mathematics or 
logic where the premises are wrong; nothing more excusable than 
the trial forecast for the life of a spectacular natural phenomenon, 
even though it will be and remain improljalile till every factor in play 
has Ijeen given its full share in the process. 

The problem of Niagara is not simple. As one sees with each 
change of the sun a new wonder in its fascinating rush of waters, so 
every reconsideration of the problem of its natural future brings into 
activity contributory and qualifying elements before unrecognized. 

The intelligent pulilic, now quite familiar with these forecasts, 
looks upon the Niagara cataract as doomed at some remote time and 
from causes which human power can not control, and doubtless this 

VOL. LXVI.— 32. 



490 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 

feeling, now that the novelty of the sensation is past, has been fol- 
lowed by an intellectual resignation. Even the claims of posterity, 
the passing pang that our descendants may not see the mighty cadence 
of water as our eyes see it, quite relax all hold upon us in view of the 
fact that after all this may not happen just as represented. 

The heavy bed of tough dolomite limestone at the crest of the 
falls, which is the occasion of their existence, lies above a thick mass of 
soft shale which easily caves in under the rebound of the falling waters, 
and by so doing becomes the chief cause of the breaking down of the 
crest and of the cataract's retreat. This bed of shale runs down into 
the earth in the direction from which the water comes, the south. 
It will be out of the reach of the cataract after a while, leaving an 
escarpment wholly composed of the tough limestone, which will make 
the problem of retreat thenceforward quite a different one from what it 
is to-day. There are, moreover, fifty-seven feet of hard dolomites above 
the crest of the falls over whose edges the water now descends in 
rapids. As the cataract moves southward by the falling away of its 
rock face it will grow higher instead of lower, until after it has passed 
the parting of the waters above Goat Island. Indeed it niay become 
fifty feet higher than it now is and so firmly upheld by the heavy 
masonry of limestones that caving in must cease and further retreat 
will be reduced to its slowest terms. 

As to the crustal movement whose tendency is to spill the waters 
westward out of the Erie basin, we may observe that the earth's crust 
is most uneasy and its movements most uncertain. Nearly every place 
is going either up or down, few are in a state of actual quietude. 
These movements have every variety of period; some may be secular, 
some are known to be relatively brief. Fifty years ago the shore at 
Perce on the Gaspe coast was going down, the fishermen had to aban- 
don their drying stages and Iraild them farther up the beach, but 
to-day the shore is coming up again and excavations for the new 
stages reveal the remains of the old ones which have been buried in 
the sea for nearly two generations. There is no knowing when the 
movement now affecting the Niagara region will cease. 

Public resignation over the natural but distant fate of Niagara 
has grown to public concern at its immediate future. It is alleged 
that the present and contemplated industrial development at Niagara 
Falls immediately imperils the integrity and perpetuity of that great 
spectacle. Is this true? If it is, the American and Canadian public 
who hold this phenomenon in trust for the world ought to know it. 
However this question may be received and however answered by the 
interested j^roducer or the disinterested public, it has on more than 
one occasion been flatly and formally before the people of the State 
of New York and of the Province of -Ontario and has had to be met. 



THE MENACE TO NIAGARA. 491 

The legislative bodies of these two governments must meet it again, for 
it is plainly not the present temper of the public to let it pass in un- 
certainty. 

Any citizen of New York or Ontario may justly take a pride in 
the magnificent industrial development building up about Niagara 
Falls, even though it is all at the cost of the beauty and magnificence 
of the cataract. Nowhere else has nature afforded such tremendous 
power at once available to mankind and calling forth the highest 
play of his genius. If I could hold a brief for the development of 
these natural resources it would be the delight of my pen to paint the 
wealth, the contributions to human comfort wliich will flow from 
them. I might argue that nature created this tremendous fall of 
water for the express purpose of contributing to commercial power 
and industrial supremacy. Such a brief would lament, as I have 
heard a" distinguished engineer lament, the actual Avaste of power dur- 
ing the ages in which the great river has been discharging itself 
in unutterable glory and construe it sinful to neglect the opportunity 
so lavishly afforded. Such a brief might deride and cachinnate at 
the possibility of ever diverting enough -water from Niagara to make 
the Falls palpably less, and all these arguments it would not be difficult 
to enforce with specious reasoning and pleading facts. 

The attitude of the man who is willing and ready to see Niagara 
entirely drained for the- wealth it would produce, and only a dreary 
canyon left to speak of its splendid past, is wholly intelligible, or Avould 
be except for the potent facts that w^ealth and happiness and con- 
tentment are purely relative and that the natural forces of the world 
were not created for the use of man. 

The question I have put has been not only asked, Init answered, 
in New York, officially. The abstraction of water from Niagara Falls 
was condemned by a committee of the constitutional convention ap- 
pointed to investigate this subject in 1894, when the public had begun 
to suspect that the legislature had been too free with its gifts of 
franchises to power companies. It was vigorously and effectively 
answered by Governor Odell in 1904, who stood out finely against a 
tremendous pressure brought to bear upon him by the industrial in- 
terests, not through any hostility to them, but for the simple senti- 
mental reason that the Falls must be conserved. Few know the courage 
of this act, but it was a triumph of sentiment and morality which the 
citizens of New York may well applaud. 

The editor of the Popular Science Monthly has asked me to 
set forth the facts relating to the situation at Niagara Falls in such 
form that it may be made clear whether existing and impending con- 
ditions there constitute an actual menace to the cataract and its ac- 
companying attractions, or whether public apprehension has been un- 



492 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 

necessarily aroused by a kind of pantophobia wliich may work a real 
injustice to industrial progress. 

Except for that slender radical element of the community which 
proudly avows its willingness to see the Falls wholly developed into 
power all will agree that if danger is impending to the cataract it is 
time now that the danger be measured and fully apprehended. 

^rhe conservation of Niagara Falls is a question of public morals. 
Everv industrial enterprise of wide scope has as its foundation a 
moral ])rol)l4?m; it can not be simply the ])roducer of great wealth 
regardless of the rights of others and of the higher claims of com- 
munity life ; nor can it ignore the claims of spiritual excellence and of 
the higher life which seeks something beyond the minted ideal. This 
claim of the higher life, the demands of the finer emotions, the love 
for the beautiful in nature, express themselves in part in the govern- 
ment protection of natural wonders from defacement and destruction; 
in organizations created to keep alive this sentiment and extend the 
fegis of the state over natural glories which belong to mankind rather 
than to men. Xo wise man confesses himself devoid of such emo- 
tions. 

The violation of this moral principle in present practise oifends 
the best sentiments of the race. It is said that the classic Falls of 
Lodore have been done to death by conversion into power. The far- 
famed Falls of ]\Iontmorency at Quebec show only a tremulous and 
weakened front to the traveler on the St. Lawrence, shorn of their 
glories in order to light the City of Quebec. The City of Eochester, 
seat of learning, refinement and industrial achievement, has exchanged 
the beautiful cascades of the Genesee for a slimy canyon. These at- 
tacks on natural phenomena have benefited the few, contributed to 
their comfort and convenience ; they have injured the many, robbed 
them of a natural and ])roper heritage. 

Tender the guidance of this principle the claim of the individual, 
personal or corporate, must give way to the l)roadly founded rights 
of the community and the race. Under whatever political control 
such a majestic demonstration of nature's power may be, this control 
must be looked upon as a trust rather than the possession of a mer- 
chantable commodity or a commercial asset. States have not the 
moral 'right to do as they please with s\ich phenomena. In a final 
analysis the individual or corporate claim to advantage from such a 
source is wliolly extinauislied, howsoever expediency may qualify and 
adjust the conflicting claims. 

Wherein does the danger to Xiagara Falls from industrial de- 
velopment lie? Simply in the drawing off of its waters from the 
river above the cataract, carrying them around the cliff by some other 
way or discharging them by tunnel into the face of the falls near 
the base. 



THE MENACE TO NIAGARA. 



493 



The use of Xiagara waters for power production has been the 
dream of years and its earliest successful achievement is expressed in the 
present Niagara Falls Hydraulic Power & ^Manufacturing Co.. whose 
existence as an active consumer of Xiagara water antedates its statu- 
tory recognition. The legislature of Xew York began giving away 
franchises to power companies about twenty years ago. It has never 
asked a financial return of anv sort for any of tliese, as, during the 




The AMERICAN Channel at the Ckest of the Falls diking the Ice Jam of 

Maech, 1903. 



period from 1885 to 1894. when they were most freely granted, it 
proba1)ly seemed not wise to inflict a revenue on a budding industry. 
Xew York thus receives nothing whatever in return for the privileges 
it has granted for the consumption of its own waters. We mention 
this fact incidentally, just as we may mention that the Canadian com- 
panies are to jiay a suljstantial return for similar privileges; l)ut this 
matter of revenue has no bearing whatever on the theme before us. 
Whether or not any pul)lic revenue be derived from the use of Niagara 
is entirely beside the issue save as taxation of the ]iroduct of the com- 
panies can Ije used as a means for the control of the situation. 

Xine of these companies have been legally recognized or chartered 
in Xew York. Of these charters, all were granted in good faith, but 
it may be doul)tcd if all were asked for and received in the same 
si)irit. Some, it would seem, were immediately for sale as soon as 



494 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 




s 5 



fe a 



THE MENACE TO NIAGARA. 



495 



granted. Some failed to effect organization because the present re- 
quirements of such an undertaking demand enormous capital. Some 
were limited in respect to the amount of water they may abstract from 
the river, as the Niagara Falls Hydraulic Power & Manufacturing 
Co., to 462,000 cubic feet per minute, and the Niagara Falls Power 
Co., to 516,000 cubic feet per minute. Others were restricted in the 
amount of power to be produced, as the last named company, which 
may not exceed 200,000 horse-power. In most cases, however, no 
limitations were placed either on power to be produced or water to 
be abstracted. Several were limited as to the time in which they 
were to begin work in good faith, two of them to five years, two to 




The American Bank below the Steel Arch Bridge, showing the waste of water and 
power from the spillways and tail-races of the factories. 



ten years. Three if not four of the charters are dead by limitation, 
one company sold its franchise to another, one is slumbering with an 
occasional show of life, another is leading a questionable life and 
two are producing and selling power. 

The Niagara Falls Hydraulic Power & Manufacturing Co. and 
the Niagara Falls Power Co., the productive organizations, are alone 
to be credited with the really amazing industrial developments at this 
place, and they are still far within their statutory limitations in the 
consumption of water. With this superb display of mechanical achieve- 



496 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 

ment before his eyes one looks and looks in vain for a depauperated 
and enfeebled cataract. The flow of water is of course diminished, 
but to the occasional visitor it is but mathematically perceptible. 
Citizens of Niagara Falls who have the cataract daily before the eye 
have insisted that the loss of Avater is perceptil)k\ and that such loss 
is felt in other ways is seen in the now annual gorging of the ice 
in the American channel at the upper end of Goat Island, which lays 
bare the American channel, sends all its water to Canada, and which 
very rarely happened when the depth of the water was normal. 

The two active American companies are not going to use any less 
water than now, but are vigorously increasing their output and build- 
ing new power liouses to meet their growing uiarkct. Indeed, one of 
them, realizing its close approach to statutory limits, has established 
itself on the Canadian side. These two companies are permitted to 
consume the following amounts of water : 

Niagara Falls Hydraulic Power & ilanufacturing Co 7,700 cu. ft. per sec. 

Niagara Falls Power Co J'^^ " 

16,300 " 

The water abstracted by these companies is in no small degree 
wasted, that is to say the power jjroduced is no equable measure of the 
amount of water taken from the river. This page carries a picture 
familiar to a thousand eyes — the view of the American bank below 
the steel arch bridge. This has lieen termed ' the backyard view of 
Xiagara. The little cascades springing from holes in the side of 
the bank at various heights are the wasteways of the factories above. 
Some of these cascades are now encased in flumes and made pro- 
ductive at the bottom of the elitf. l>ut this is only a recent change 
designed to save the wasted power, but involving the construction of a 
row of factories or wheel pits all along the edge of the water. The 
fall from the height of waters where these two companies have their 
intakes, to the base of the cataract, is approximately 224 feet, far lie- 
yond the working possibility of the turbine pit. The outrush of water 
at the base of the cliff near the bridge anchorage is the discharge of 
the great tunnel of the Niagara Falls Power Co., which is the tail-race 
from the wheel pits far back up the city and far above in the rocks. 

On the Canadian side the activity in the erection of power works 
has been more strenuous. Utter devastation of the natural beauties of 
Queen Victoria Park, the demolition of islands and creeks, the ex- 
cavation of the rock surface to the complete olditeration of Avell-known 
landmarks, have been the accompaniments of the unparalleled en- 
deavors and achievements here. Whoever has visited this part of the 
Falls region since the l)eginning of these gigantic operations has sought 
in vain for tlie Dufterin Islands and Crescent Island, and what must 
have seemed to liim an inextricable chaos of rock excavations, of 



TEE MENACE TO NIAGAEA. 497 

switches and sidings, of temporary and permanent constructions, in 
confusion worse confounded, has confronted liim. Out of it all, it 
is presumed, the phms for the artificial beautifying of the spot will 
oradually nnfold and the visitor of coming years is to see it with its 
attractions not onlv restored. Imt enhanced. 




SITE OF THE POWER-HOUSE OF THE ONTARIO POWER COMPANY AT THE EDGE OF THE 

Water below the Falls on the Canadian Side. 

Great sections of the river bottom, acres of rock over which the 
river has flowed for ages in tumultuous energy, have l)een for the first 
time exposed to the q-e of man and the light of the sun. These 
sections of the river have now in large part been alisorbed into fore- 
bays and intakes, into the permanent constructions of the couipanies, 
never to l^e given l)ack to their proper charge. 

The three Canadian companies are to be greater consumers than 
the American. They are the finest, the most magnificent concep- 
tions of hvdraulic engineering, and in their ultimate realization rise 
to proportions which are an expression of the genius that has inspired 
them. No one of these, let us remark, is morilmnd or inactive: each 
shows the highest type of virility. 

The Canadian Niagara Power Co. lias a statutory limit of 

.■ f . . 8,900 cu. ft. per sec. 

consumption ot ' 

The Ontario Power Co i-.uuu 

The Toronto & Niagara Power Co n^200 

32,100 " - " 



498 



POPULAR SCIENCE MOXTHLY. 



Adding to this total the limits of the American producing com- 
panies (16,300), we have for the entire chartered abstraction of the 
five companies referred to. 48,400 cubic feet per second. 

This is of itself a dry and apparently barren fact. Let us look 
to its bearings upon the structure of the Xiagara Elver and the total 
flow of waters through its channel. 

The ]S"iagara Eiver flows over a rock liottom, on which the strata 
dip uniformly to the west. The sill or edge of the Falls is ten feet 
higher on the American than on the Canadian side, the waters at the 
crest of the American Falls ten feet shallower. 




16^. 



The Rock-bed of the River on the Canadian Side, now partly enclosed 
BY Permanent Construction. 



The flow of water through the channel and over the Falls was 
measured by the United States engineers in 1868, and by Sir Casimir 
Gzowski in 1870-3, with results varying from 246,000 cubic feet -per 
second (the latter) to a maximum of 280,000 cubic feet per second 
(the former). The later averages given by the United States engi- 
neers, derived from the mean flow of water from Lake Erie at Buffalo 
during a period of forty years, afford 222,400 cubic feet per second. 
There are certain constants of abstraction for the Welland and the 
Erie canals which may be regarded as equalized by the inflow of 
streams into the river between Buffalo and the Falls, so that the figure 
which has been generally accepted and has entered into the calculations 



THE MENACE TO NIAGARA. 499 

of the engineers is 234,000 cubic feet per second. It is in cubic feet 
per second that we prefer to express our statements ; the attempt to put 
them in terms of horse-power is attended with too many uncertainties. 
The potential or theoretical horse-power of this volume of water 
falling in the cataract is variously, sometimes carelessly stated in the 
engineers' reports as from three to six millions. A recalculation gives 
it at 3,800.000 for the cataract, which would be increased by the ad- 
ditional fall from the height of the rapids to the crest of the Falls. 
Goat Island, picketing the frontier, divides the waters unfairly, giving 
much more than three-fourths of their volume to the Canadian side, 



■^..j,,,m,m»i^^Am^am!Xsmm»^CttrtxT::rfT^ 




The Rock-bed of the River, left Dry by the Wing Dam of one of the 
Canadian Companies. 

though the international boundary established by the Treaty of Ghent 
lies at the line of deepest water. Xow as less than one fourth of 
the total volume of the waters pours down the American channel and 
this channel is much shallower than the other, it is at once evident 
that abstractions of water will make themselves first perceptible in 
the shoaling of the American channel. At the parting of the waters 
above Goat Island the great current of the river moves to the west, 
and converges into the funnel of the splendid Horseshoe Falls. The 
American channel actually carries in comparison but a feeble flow and 
the whole American cataract is in extremely delicate equilibrium. 
A competent hydraulic engineer, taking the accepted volume of 



500 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the flow, the kMioHi of ilu. entire crest of the Falls on Ijoth sides 
(4,070 feet) and tlie ditTerenee in elevation of the sill of the Falls, 
has calculated that when the flow is reduced to 184,000 cubic feet per 
second, or In- 40.000 cul)ic feet, the water will he down to the present 
rock liottoin at the ed^e of the American sliore. 




Wing Dam of one of thf. Canadian Companies running out to the Edge 
■ of the Rapids. 



Then the American Falls. tlioui;h still forming a cataract, will 1)6 
but a ghost of their ancient magnificence; instead of the mighty 
sheet of emerald waters now spreading in silent majesty over the rock 
crest, a weakly, thin, white apron of waters carried forward by a 
slender impulse a icryo and the great cadence will have lost its glory. 
Electric searchlights in all the colors of the rainbow dancing up and 
over the falling waters and other factitious means of producing a 
spectacle will never compensate the loss. 

Let one fifth more of the water be abstracted beyond the line we 
have already calculated and the American channel will be dry. That 
is, in effect, double tiie amount of 40.000 culuc feet, and when SO.OdO 
cubic feet have been taken away from the present flow the Canadian 
cbannel will still be an interesting oliject. but the American Falls will 
be wholly gone. 

All our figures in these statements and calculations, it mav be well 
to repeat, are taken from the reports of the Ignited States engineers, 
of the power comj)anies" engineers, oi- have been specially derived at 
my solicitation liy engineers of high standing. 

We may return to the data given concerning present and imme- 
diately contemplated abstraction. 

The two American and three Canadian companies now in opera- 



THE MENACE TO NIAGARA. 501 

ti'on or aliont to operate, when producing to their charter limits will 
abstract 48,000 cubic feet per second. That amount will bring the 
water-level to the bottom of the river at the x\merican shore. 

So much then is in immediate prospect. The turning of the waters 
a few days ago into the largest turbines the world has ever seen, thus 
inaugurating the actual production of Canadian power, sounded the 
death knell of the American Falls, leaving to those whose hearts sink 
and whose spirits shrivel at the thought of this destruction only a 
slender hope that it may be mechanically impracticaljle or com- 
mercially unprofitable to produce to the maximum amounts. 

We are not permitted to stop with this forecast. One of the com- 
panies chartered by the legislature of New York and the last so 
chartered to al)stract water from alwve the Falls, is the Niagara, Lock- 
port & Ontario Power Co. It received in 1894 a franchise without 
restriction upon the amount of water it might use, but work was to 
begin in good faith within ten years. It was a modest organization 
with a slender capital, too slender, as it proved, to begin operations. 
It did nothing, but in 1904 came to the legislature of New York 
asking an improved charter enlarging its powers and extending its 
time. This company proposed to take its water from far above 
the cataract, as far back as La Salle, and not to return it to the 
river channel at all, but to carry it off overland by canal to Lock- 
port, emptying it thence into Lake Ontario. The bill passed the 
legislature, not without commotion, but encountered trouble in the 
Executive Chamber. We have referred to the veto of this bill by 
Governor Odell as a fine act. Perhaps it is not necessary to say more, 
but the act was done in the face of most turbulent and insistent op- 
position, and it was clearly actuated by a relentless conviction of the 
higher rights of the citizens of the state. Ex cathedra statements by 
special attorneys and the company's engineers that no damage to the 
scenic features of the Falls could result, were supplemented by an offer 
of a tremendous sum to the state treasury for the governor's approval. 
The veto met with almost universal applause throughout the state. 
This veto was signed May 15, 1904. The company's old charter 
was signed May 21, 1894. There remained six days in which the 
company could get to work under its old charter. There is said to 
be to-day a slender ditch ujd south of Lockport, the work of a few men 
and a few carts, which represents the work done in good faith in the 
six days between May 15 and May 21, 1904. It has liecome a matter 
of common knowledge that this company has reorganized since these 
dates, increasing its capital enormously, and it is also stated that the 
stock has largely passed from the original organization into the con- 
trol of one of the great corporations. It now looks as though this 
company moans to do l)usinoss if the courts liavo uo nl)joftion. either 



502 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 

under its old charter or Avitli a new one if it can get it. Its intentions 
and organization are not a negligible quantity in contemplating what 
is going to happen to Niagara. Should it succeed in constructing its 
canal and works it is not likely that with an unrestricted charter the 
company will consume less than 10,000 cubic feet of water per second, 
and if we assume this as a fair expression of its mean consumption we 
must increase the mortgage on the Niagara waters by this amount. It 
then becomes 58,400 cubic feet per second. 

These are then the demands upon the river which are actually in 
sight. 

In the seventh annual report of the Commissioners of the Queen 
Victoria Niagara Falls Park (1903), Mr. Isham Kandolph, of Chicago, 
advisory engineer for the commissioners, makes, at the request of the 
board, a report on the ' Further Development of the Niagara Eiver 
for Power Purposes,' in which he suggests sites for four additional 
companies to consume in total 29,996 cubic feet of water per second. 
We may better construe this proposed abstraction as operations under 
consideration rather than merely as work suggested. If we add the 
amount to our last figure the result, 88,396 cubic feet per second, 
leaves the entire American channel as dry as bone. 

Such is the situation. We are out in the open with these figures. 
They are the figures of the engineers themselves. The counter-argu- 
ment to these statements has been, so far as the writer's experience 
goes, either incorrect premises or a rather l)ored smile. Putting aside 
entirely the merely proposed developments and considering only those 
actually in process we see how closely we are brought to the dead line 
for the American cataract. 

What are we going to do about it? A small, very small propor- 
tion of the community in New York and Ontario is content to let 
the process continue, even to the extinction of Niagara. This element 
of these communities is largely directly or indirectly concerned with 
the industrial developments there. Outside the boundaries of these 
trustee governments this percentage is greatly less. In the country 
as a whole, speaking for the general intelligent public, the opposition 
to this procedure seems so overwhelming as to be practically unanimous. 
New York long ago recognized the necessity of conserving such of 
these natural beauties as have fallen to her share and the state reserva- 
tion at Niagara is one of the most beautiful of parks, lamentably small 
in view of the present encroachment, but upon it she has spent some 
millions of dollars. The Province of Ontario joined hands in this 
endeavor and the Queen Victoria Park was once and will be again a 
beautiful spot, all the more beautiful, the commissioners think, after 
the installment of the power companies is complete. 



THE MENACE TO N I AG ABA. 



503 



The president of the jSTew York Eeservation has stated that 800,- 
000 tourists visit the Falls each year. This is a vast number, bringing 
in an enormous revenue to the place. Ko other evidence is required 
to demonstrate how closely the interest of the whole world is focused 
on Niagara, for these visitors are representatives of every nation. How 
many hundreds of thousands will seek put Niagara when the world 
learns that the Delilah of commerce has shorn it of its glory? Will 
they traverse the seas to behold the wonders of a breakfast-food factory 
or of any other industrial triumph? These are everywhere; Niagara is 




Commercial Niagara— The Canadian Bank below the Bridge. 



unique. To make the problem equable, when will the power develop- 
ments here put into circulation as many millions of money as do the 
visitors at the Falls? utUs/not good business to let the Falls alone? 

There is widespread power throughout the country about Niagara, 
in central and western New York and in southern Ontario — not in con- 
centrated and overwhelming manifestations, but power is running 
away now in many a stream which might be developed and stored 
without offense to the world and with profit to the community. While 
this power lying at our doors is neglected the apology for the desecra- 
tion of Niagara lacks the ring of sincerity. 

There should be a remedy for every public menace. If there is in 
the American people, especially in the citizens of New York and On- 
tario, a sturdy purpose to save Niagara, if it is proposed to meet the 



504 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 

proljlem and solve it, it will be found to possess difficulties enough. 
The working companies are established in their rights and entirely 
correct in their demeanor toward the state. The legislature of Xew 
York in 1904 memorialized the President upon the subject, urging the 
initiation of treaty relations with the King of Great Britain having 
for their purpose the cessation of further abstractions of water. It has 
been suggested l)y an influential newspaper that the end may be ap- 
proached through a presidential commission which shall first determine 
how much water may be taken from the river without detracting from 
the scenic effects. Our figures show plainly and cogently that such pro- 
cedure is useless because too late. They show that even the existing ab- 
straction of water is qualifying the majesty of the Falls and that the 
contemplated authorized aljstraction will carry the work of destruction 
well toward its finish. iSo more franchises are likely to he granted 
by either of the trustee governments. It may be well if these states 
or the superior government of each should enter into a treaty agree- 
ment to insure this result, Init the danger-point being so near, in fact 
constructively passed, protection for Xiagara means control of power 
production. The hope lies herein, that the companies, either through 
mechanical limitations, difficulties of cheap production or cheap trans- 
portation to a distant market, or through taxation of their product, may 
not be able to reach the volume of abstraction which is to seriously 
involve the splendor of the cataract. In this age of marvels, no 
present mechanical obstacles will long hold sway; the genius of man 
will overcome them all. In taxation of the power product, not neces- 
sarily for revenue but for protection, seems to me to lie the sole means 
of control of the prol)lem, the only way of saving our national pride 
before the l)ar of the Avorld. 



I 



7Sl4 108 189 5 



A 



I 



UBRARV OF CONGRESS 



014 108 189 5 



HoIUnger 

pH 8.5 

Mill Run F3.1719 



